


All Better

by BackyardPodcast



Series: A World of Lucky Spots [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Future Fic, Gen, Miraculous Ladybug Next Generation, Next Gen, Next Generation, Original Character(s), Other characters are mentioned but not enough to clog their tags, Post-Canon, That would be Louis, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BackyardPodcast/pseuds/BackyardPodcast
Summary: After effects of defeating Monarch Moth on Louis.A vague summary as to avoid spoilers for Part 1 of this series.
Relationships: Louis Agreste & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: A World of Lucky Spots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779409
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	All Better

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has MAJOR spoilers for Tool of Knowledge. Like, it's Built on one of the later-chapter reveals. You hath been forewarned.
> 
> Also, while I wouldn't describe the contents of this fic as a panic or anxiety attack, I believe it may have overlap with them. I've never had either, so I can't say for sure in either direction, but I would rather be cautious than not warn at all. Hope you enjoy!

Louis thought he would be better after the fight. His father took him in his arms and his mother was right behind him, along with his sisters. The brooch was gone and they all sat collapsed on the wet dirt and it was over. No more crawling skin or jaw moving against his will or power surging out of him like throwing up. He was safe. His family was safe. Everyone was safe. Everything was better.

The days following the final fight were soft and quiet. Only now that everything was over did the stress of it all fully dawn on him, and removing the Butterfly Miraculous had severed something in his chest, sucking away his energy with it. In short, Louis was  _ tired. _ As exhausted as he’d felt after every time the brooch had blazed on his chest, it didn’t compare to now. He had time to relax, and his drained body demanded he soak it all up. 

When his parents had asked if he wanted to stay home that Monday, he’d accepted with little hesitation. He’d stayed home that Tuesday, that Wednesday, Thursday, braved Friday but was back home for the weekend. After that, Louis was back in school, and he was all better. Louis slept well during those weeks. Given how exhausted he was, that made sense; his body wanted to make up for the missing rest. At home, things were still delicate (but not in a bad way, in a “we made it through” way); at school, things were still loud (but not in a bad way, in a “life can still be normal” way). He had had a lot of schoolwork to catch up on, and his classmates had worried about his six-day absence, but Louis was all better now. The brooch was gone, locked away in some chest by his parents, and that meant he was all better. It was all over.

When Louis found himself walking home from school by himself over two months later, he thought it’d be fine. It should’ve been fine. Both of his sisters were home sick with stomach flu, so he was enjoying the fresh spring day all on his lonesome. That was okay. He’d always been the introverted type, and frankly enjoyed the time to himself.

It was when a white butterfly flitted above the traffic grumbling next to him that Louis felt his heart clench. 

Contrary to everyone including his parents’ belief, the Butterfly Miraculous didn’t require pure snow-colored butterflies to work. Any flying bug would work, because otherwise the brooch would prove useless in any environment where white butterflies weren’t available. That, frankly, was most places. 

However, white butterflies, with their large crisp wings like blank canvases, made their transformation into akumas as noticeable as the feeling of getting dunked in ice water. No other insect quite matched its level of discrepancy. 

Louis saw that little white butterfly and was reminded of this little fact. His eyes trailed after it as it soared by while he imagined reaching out, cupping it between his hands, feeling the pain etch its way from his palms into the insect, and releasing the new akuma onto his newest victim.

Someone bumped into his shoulder. He’d stopped walking in his haze, though he wasn’t sure exactly when. He wanted to move, but he couldn’t get his feet to start, couldn’t take his eyes off the butterfly. Louis’ heart pounded in chest, and his breath raced, and he passively wondered, “what if I did it again? Without the Miraculous?”

The thought wasn’t frantic, panicked, it was just… there. Placed in his mind like a throw pillow on a couch. What if things went back to the way they were? What then?

The butterfly was gone now, but Louis still didn’t move. If it all happened again, a lot of people would get hurt, just like before, maybe worse. Charlotte, in her efforts to stop it all, could get hurt. He didn’t want her to get hurt again. It had already happened so many times and during each he’d seen it through the brooch and  _ he didn’t want her to get hurt again. _ Hurt like cuts and bruises and broken bones and slaps and slams and squeezes, and even if it was wiped away from her body by ladybugs, it still left a memory in her mind.

It still left a memory in the rest of their family’s minds, in their mother’s and father’s and sister’s.

It still left a memory in Anne Marie’s mind.

It still left a memory in Louis’ mind.

The butterfly was gone, and Louis forced himself to start walking. 

He could make his body move on, but not his mind. 

He remembered that crawl of his skin that grew and grew until the brooch flickered to life, taking over his mind like a film growing on a piece of meat. He remembered hearing Nooroo’s whispers in those moments of transformation, because for whatever reason the kwami was trapped in the Miraculous. Louis assumed bitterly that it was to take away the only being who would commiserate in the pain. He remembered how little he felt like himself when transformed, but also how it hadn’t been a separate entity taking over. It was still Louis speaking, directing, controlling. It was still Louis watching each and every battle, still Louis finding places to hide so he wouldn’t be caught as Paris’ newest villain.

But it hadn’t been his desires guiding his actions. He wanted to do what he was doing while transformed, but it wasn’t his want that he felt. It came from the brooch. It was why, even when not transformed, Louis couldn’t take off the Miraculous himself. Every time he tried, that desire to remain and wreak evil poured from the brooch, and that skin crawling feeling would rush over his body, and he would transform. 

When transformed, Louis was still himself, still conscious of his actions, but Miraculous superimposed other values and wants onto him. Maybe that was how the people he akumatized felt.

But he was better now. He was free of the Butterfly Miraculous, and he’d been doing great for months. Why had a little butterfly reminded him of all the wrongness that he wanted to leave in the past? Why couldn’t he just be better now?

Louis stood at his front stoop. He’d seen it approaching, anticipated it even. He was home now. When he went inside, the warmth of indoor heating seeped into his skin. Though he’d planned on heading straight to his bedroom, Louis found himself sitting down at the dining room table. Someone clattered around in the adjacent kitchen, and the noise carried to his ears. 

Maybe he hadn’t been doing fantastic since the final fight. From the habitual isolation and the remaining stress of being near people who could  _ catch him _ (though what that meant now with the brooch gone, he wasn’t sure) to how  _ tired _ he was, Louis wasn’t the same happy person he’d been before donning the Butterfly Miraculous, and he couldn’t pretend he was.

But he should’ve passed his lowest point by now, right? Wearing the brooch should have been the worst part, or even the bit of time immediately after its removal could have been. But sitting there in the kitchen, Louis didn’t feel like he was doing better compared to them. His thoughts kept on whirring, and he couldn’t focus on the present; that didn’t feel like better. It felt worse than the exhausted hypersensitivity from two months prior. 

Something wet pressed against his hair, and it took him a moment to realize it was his mother kissing the top of his head. “How was school today?” she said, her voice purposely light as she placed a hand on his shoulder.

Louis didn’t say anything back, but when she began to pull away, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, into a hug. 

Louis had hurt a lot of people. Maybe it hadn’t been by choice, but as the conduit, he’d seen all the hurt, felt a lot of it too. Those memories wouldn’t just disappear; he was stuck with them. He was stuck with the thoughts asking what if it had been worse, with the ones retraipsing each and every detail of the pain, with the heart racing and the heavy breathing and the panicked adrenaline pumping through his veins. He didn’t feel like those would ever go away, didn’t know if they could. 

He didn’t know if he had the words to explain everything inside of his head. But the arms around him and Marinette’s soft humming made him feel more real, less trapped in the wheel of his thoughts, so it was good. Louis sucked in a breath. Pushed it out. His mother rubbed circles on his back with her thumbs.

“Bad day?” she asked, voice still as airy as before.

He shook his head.

“Bigger stuff then?” Marinette hummed some more. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Louis’ voice was croaky with disuse. “Sit with me?”

She pulled a chair towards his own seat so they could sit without entirely losing physical contact. Marinette’s arms still loosely lay on his shoulders, hands cupping the back of his head.

Louis began to speak. He said what he could, what he could bear to share, and breezed past what he couldn’t. He spoke and spoke and let her in on how he still wasn’t better but how much he felt like he should be, how much he wanted to be. Marinette listened through the whole thing, and Louis found it easier to believe that he would be better some day.

**Author's Note:**

> The need to write this fic hit me last week, so here we are.
> 
> If you enjoyed this lil fic, please leave a kudos and/or a comment! They really do make my day and encourage me to keep posting. Thanks for reading!


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